In a Balkan and multicultural province on the borders of an empire reminiscent of Austria-Hungary at the beginning of the 20th centurye century, T. is a small town with no history. With its numb, feudal atmosphere, it’s a kind of “asshole of the world” where the winters seem to be endless.
But the murder of the priest, found by children with his skull shattered by a large stone, will inflame people’s minds. Very quickly, characters who were perhaps expecting the event will start throwing oil on the fire. The small mosque will be set on fire, and the few Muslim families will be tempted to take the road to exile towards “the country whose banner was struck by a golden crescent”.
A running murderer, a desperate city, lengthening shadows. “We were approaching the edge of an abyss, that was certain, but which one? This is the question that boils Duskthe new novel of atmosphere and contrasts by Philippe Claudel, a hard and fascinating fable carried by a round and carnal style.
With his “dented rodent physique”, Nourio leads the investigation. Married and father of several children, obsessed with sex who constantly tugs at his still pregnant wife, dreaming of advancement, the Policeman feels that he is playing his all. At his side, Baraj, his shy and clumsy Deputy, a bit of a poet, is reminiscent of an ox or a draft horse. All that was “lacking was the peg to which to tie him for the time of his life.”
In this country of cold and fog, the policeman, instrument of darkness despite himself, will gradually bend to a strange “efficient truth”. “I have come to the conclusion that what is demanded and acceptable by the greatest number is true. »
Nothing to displease the Mayor, the Notary or the Reporter of the Administration, in no hurry to clarify the crimes. While Lémia, who found the body of the Curé, the “almost nubile” daughter of the clog-maker, turns the head of the Policeman.
For three months, the smooth façade of the immobile little town will crack. A strange anxiety sets in, the citizens are on their toes, a formless and nameless threat, like an odorless gas, comes to fill all space. The enemy? The evil ? Nothing, perhaps, but the rusty cogs of an empire in decline, a blind machine with no other aim than to preserve its own truth, “worn out by its false greatness and its artificial cohesion, blinded by its past splendor.
Impossible, at times, not to think of the Gracq of Shore of Syrtes or at the Buzzati of Tartar Desert — two authors to whom Claudel’s writing has often been compared. Born in Lorraine in 1962, with his back to the border, the French novelist and filmmaker is used to settings placed between dog and wolf. Like with gray souls (Stock, Prix Renaudot 2003), which revolved around the murder of a little girl, or Brodeck’s report (Stock, 2007), which mixed crime, xenophobia and village cowardice.
With Dusk, Philippe Claudel once again weaves a bewitching universe, always a bit of yesterday or the day before yesterday, posed in a time when things were both simpler and more complex. A novel capable of resonating with our present, also crossed by strong passions, quick opinions and subtle manipulations.